Birgit’s Garden Photo Book by Eija Makivuoti. Reviewed in Issue 14

Described as “one of the last, untouched paradises on earth,” Birgit’s Garden takes us on a journey to the Faroe Islands as viewed through the lens of Eija Makivuoti’s camera. A photographic artist specializing in the documentation of performance, people and places Eija celebrates both the country and culture all encompassed within the pages of her most recent art photography book.

Spanning a total of six years the photo documentary project and self-styled travelogue beautifully entwines photographs with story. Presenting itself as an unfolding conversation between Eija and the proud Faroese people, bounteous amounts of wanderlust can eagerly be anticipated with the turn of each page and through every tale given voice.

In amidst the unforgiving Atlantic Ocean lies a coastline and community that you can’t but help fall for and Birgit’s Garden, filled with friendships from cover to cover, aids us in doing so.

Not just scratching at the surface, through Eija’s total immersion into her newfound surroundings with newfound friends, we too can, if only momentarily, transport ourselves to a hidden, un-spoilt land beneath moody skies and bordered by unforgiving deep blue seas. It is these atmospheric landscapes that you’ll see peppering pages and placed in contrast alongside striking portraiture both intimate and candid.

However, just like on the Faroe Islands themselves, it is the importance placed upon music that bares just as much weight within the book as it does to the Faroese people and Birgit’s Garden observes this as well as all the delicate but extraordinary moments in between.

In your own words, what was it about the Faroe Islands that initially drew you to them?

When visiting the islands for the first time in 2008 I walked the streets of Tórshavn and I got the feeling that I had ended up in a place I belong to. This feeling is hard to explain, at the same time it felt intriguing and soothing. I had to find out why I felt like that. This was before I actually knew anyone. I am sure it also had to do with the feeling which I had gotten via the music by the Faroese metal band Týr and at a Faroese cultural evening arranged by the Nordic House in the Faroe Islands during the first travel there (it also including music; the Faroese ballads and the chain dance) – it was a mix of something unexplainable and powerful.

Describing the Faroe Islands as “a hidden place no one happens upon by chance,” so when and how did you first come to encounter them yourself?

As above I already mentioned, my first knowledge of a place called the Faroe Islands came through the music of Týr. The first Faroese person whom I met was a lady called Urd Johannessen. She told me more about Faroese metal music, about a band called SIC and got me in touch with them (I ended up making a 3 year photo documentary about them, it was the first project). Urd has been helping me out through the years (as she was working at the Nordic House, a nordic cultural house located in Tórshavn), so she has a very important role in making all of this happen. I travelled to the Faroe Islands for the first time in april 2008 in connection to my work at the Nordic Culture Point.

The photographs in Birgit’s Garden were taken over a period of 6 years from 2008 – 2014, had you always had the intention to study the Faroe Islands for such a long period of time?

Not at all. I had no idea what I had stepped into. One project lead to an other, so it has truly been a wondrous journey.

How did the people of the Faroe Islands react to your project? Did you feel welcome during your time spent there?

My first project was made together with the metal band SIC. I got them to play in Helsinki at a festival I organized in connection to a previous photo exhibition. We liked each other and I came up with the idea that I can make a photo documentary about them. I worked together with the SIC guys for almost 3 years during which they and their families took me in like I was as one of their own – the guys in SIC became my brothers. The Faroese people are extremely welcoming, but it works both ways. It also depends on you and how you are – if you are interested and open to their culture and ways of living. The book project came far more later, first I made many smaller photo projects that are all connected and also featured in the book as different photo series. Everyone has been most supportive.

A travelogue of sorts, Birgit’s Garden shares the stories of the people who feature; would you agree that in a way the book serves as almost a collaboration between yourself and those who became your subjects?

Yes, it is a collaboration – this kind of “project” you do not make alone. I would though call it something more than just plain work or a project – I was taken in as one of them and we got to know each other. It has always been more than work for me, it goes beyond that. It is more like sharing your life with others and they become like your own family. I as an artist can then of course use these encounters and experiences to filter something – stories – from all that. As a documentary photographer I also can see the limits of only one perspective to a subject.

From shooting for your book, Birgit’s Garden, do you feel it afforded you new friendships with people that you might not have come across otherwise?

I think it was the other way around after a while. New friendships afforded me to grow and bring the photographs into a totally different direction, into something deeper. In the beginning I never intended to make a book, the thought came along around 3 years ago and I started to raise funding for it. I think the interest in music was far more important mediator in all this, not the photographing itself.

I’m sure it was important to you to accurately represent the community and culture you encountered; do you feel you achieved this in Birgit’s Garden?

I tried to make it as I have experienced it. And portray the stories and the people with honesty – so trying not to exploit them in any way or to make it too romantic or exotic. The entire book st is a ballad made with love and with respect also. The publisher, Sprotin, told me that this is a different kind of photo book made about the Faroe Islands, as it is so “Faroese” – ordinary things they would probably not thought of themselves to put in a book. I think this is the best praise I could have gotten. Others have told me that: “it is exactly how it is here”. So I guess I managed to portray a part of the Faroe Islands as it is. The part I gotten to know.

Having spent so much time in the Faroe Islands, how do you feel towards the country and its people? Has it become like a second home?

Yes it has. I have friends who ask me when I will come home. And as said, a part of me became (or was already) a bit Faroese. I think many of the Faroese people I got to know are like my own family and I miss them a great deal when not being around them. To me it is a place where people still acknowledge that family and other people are dependent on each other and honour that. It is a community who also has reverence towards the nature surrounding them and pride in their own culture (as it is of course changing but not in away that you become something else but just fusion new influences with your own culture). As a Finnish person I feel a bit stranded in “my own” culture which has become so estranged from its own past (or is it only me, being born as child of Finnish migrants in Sweden) – I think people in Finland are already reacting to the over powering flood of American culture on us and getting back to finding about our own roots and origin (what ever it is). When you know about that and start respecting that, you are more open to others, as you know your self better, I think. This journey became a bit deeper than I could have imagined.

You have received a lot of ongoing support for the project, how much has it helped you to make the completion of the project possible? Might we have never seen the beauty that Birgit’s Garden portrays of the Faroe Islands without so?

Yes, I have gotten a lot of support from different places and from different people. The monetary support from different funds have been very important as with out them I could not have afforded realizing the last parts of the book work. With this I mean the photo processing, the entire layout work and the most expensive part, the printing and the binding. All the text work with proof reading has been made upon voluntary basis, so collaboration there also with my lovely book crew, the people featured in the book and my Faroese publisher Sprotin. The non-monetary or immaterial support has been immense and given me the strength to make all of this happen. The book project’s main funders have been the Nordic Culture Fund, the Swedish Cultural Fund in Finland and Eugène, Elisabeth and Birgit Nygrén Foundation. Me and Pia (the graphic designer of the book) also got a travel grant from the Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme for Culture so we could attend the book launches in the Faroe Islands last July.

And finally, as a photographic artist, what will be next for you? Can we look forward to any further similar projects from you in the future?

I am still in the process of this book project as it is not done by just finishing the book – now it is all that work to keep it alive and present it. Maybe I try to find an international publisher for it also.

What concerns something new, time will tell, as I see it in a way that the story finds you. I had one idea to actually go back to Northern Sweden and study my own heritage a bit with a bit more open mind. I also applied for a residency in Iceland. So no major plans yet, but something will emerge, I am sure.